Off the beaches, there have been some reasonable bream on offer and with the swell now dropping and great tides this weekend, conditions should be close to optimum. Best baits will most likely be mullet or tailor strips, and pipis. Lighthouse has been consistent for tailor, as has South Beach at Dunbogan, with dawn and evening sessions productive. North Haven has been well worth a look with good numbers of school mulloway to around 9 kilos, although Lighthouse and North Beach have both been a little below par. Still a few nice whiting on Lighthouse for those throwing a beach worm around the shallow flats on the rising tide.
Off the rocks, tailor numbers and quality are on the improve, with Big Hill and Hat Head holding good fish. Point Plomer has begun to produce some nice bream. Drummer remain a little quiet although the big swell early in the week has shifted a lot of sand, so a significant improvement shouldn’t be far off. Good numbers of blackfish remain a great alternative. While most have packed their land-based game gear for the season, we have had a few reports of longtails busting off Port so a session could well prove rewarding.
In the estuaries, bream numbers are excellent. Best reports have been around Limeburners and the breakwalls with yabbies, mullet strips and gut baits achieving good results. Flathead numbers have remained solid throughout most of the system and show no real signs of slowing. Blackfish results are slowly improving albeit with plenty of undersize fish among the better models. Several large schools were seen entering the system during the recent rough seas.
Offshore, with the exception of earlier this week, sea conditions have generally been favourable. Results over the past week have been mixed, with snapper numbers only reasonable for this time of year. Some nice pearl perch have been taken from south of the Lighthouse on bait and plastics, while those fishing evenings continue to score mulloway and teraglin. The odd billfish is still out wide with a striped marlin of 165kg taken last weekend. If mahi mahi are on your agenda, be mindful the FAD has now been removed for the winter.
Jason and Virginia Isaac
Ned Kelly’s Bait and Tackle
(02) 6583 8318jas.ned@bigpond.com